During the operation of most computer networks and distributed systems, several faults and failures inevitably arise. In some cases, the faults and failures are transient and can be corrected automatically by the network or distributed system. However, in many cases, a human administrator must intervene to understand the cause of the fault or failure, and then undertake corrective action. Often, the corrective action involves changing the configuration of system devices and components.
Current systems that report network faults are distinct and isolated from systems used to make configuration changes. The human administrator(s) typically monitor network faults from a network management system and after determining the root-cause, a separate configuration system is used to fix the problem.
Thus, a need exists for improved network management and configuration systems.